STERLING — Amid a small crowd dispersed around Sunset Memorial Gardens, a private cemetery north of Sterling, Shaneen and Gregg Lockman stood still in front of a dozen grave plots Monday.

Each one, sunken about a shoe's depth into the ground and tussled with weeds and dry grass along the edges, bore the name of Shaneen's family members. Around them are similar plots with different names — some with head stones plucked out of the ground and resting on the lawn, others with rectangular dirt holes left half-filled after a disinterment.

“It used to be beautiful out here,” Shaneen said, adding that it's slipped more each year. “If I could afford it, I'd take (my family graves) out. It's just so disrespectful.”

The Lockmans echo a common concern about the conditions of the cemetery: They're unkempt, disrespectful to the dead and getting worse.

But a handful of representatives of the Sunset Memorial Gardens committee — a volunteer group that's trying to improve conditions at the cemetery — has stepped up efforts in the past couple months to find solutions to some of the problems.

On Monday they met with Sunset Memorial owner Richard Lawler and members of the Colorado Cemetery Association board, which mediates between cemetery owners and lot owners to find solutions for both parties.

The group spoke at the cemetery for a couple hours in the afternoon and continued through a private lunch meeting, but a CCA representative said they still wouldn't have a solid list of suggestions for at least two weeks.

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A list of struggles

Over the past year, Propp and other committee members have tried solving the problems revolving around one issue: money.

Money to fund the cemetery was an issue long before Lawler acquired the property for $10 in 2009. With that, he took on the property's debt, as well.

Much of the funds that were supposed to be set aside — saved in a fund for grave package money that hadn't been spent yet — had long been spent by former owner Janet Capaci, who has since died.

Every package that had paid money up front — money that was supposed to be collecting interest until Lawler needed to use it for someone's burial ceremony — suddenly had no money set aside. (Mary Helvie, who sold the property to Lawler, said she told him she was “pretty much breaking even” with the property when she sold it to him.)

That meant that Lawler also came into the deal with a huge loss of funds, compounded by the hundreds of client packages still sitting in giant filing cabinets in his office.

No one has gone through the files to figure out how much debt they all contained, partially because Lawler hasn't allowed committee members to access them, they said. Propp said Lawler allowed them to look at the files, but he changed his mind after they moved the files from his home to his cemetery office because of perceived confidentiality issues.

The committee approached both the District Attorney's Office and the Colorado Attorney General's Office to seek help, but received none from them, either.

A representative from the Attorney General's Office said they had limited options since Sunset was a privately owned company.

District Attorney Brittny Lewton said people from her office looked into filing charges concerning the perpetual care fund, but the person liable — Capaci — was already deceased.

And the upkeep issues on the property don't help.

Propp said the property has a well attached for water, but it needs to be retrofitted with a new pump — about a $50,000 fix, according to an estimate. The sprinkler system, suffering from old age, could require 1 to 3 miles of new piping.

Money from a perpetual care fund, which should help pay for upkeep with funds set aside in the lot prices, is similarly stuck in an account at a Texas bank.

Lawler could access those funds, but first he'd have to address another nagging issue: finding a clear title.

While Lawler operates as the owner of Sunset Memorial, he still doesn't have a legitimate title to the property. That means that somewhere down the line of ownership a piece of the property's title changed — maybe some wording or boundary definitions — so that Lawler operates as a property owner but can't, say, transfer a company's fund from one bank to another.

What's next for Sunset

Heath Carroll, first vice president of the CCA, said finding the last owner to have a clear title is one of the first items on their agenda. Even if the company to last hold a clear title doesn't exist, he said, there are still ways to get it transferred to a new owner.

The next steps are more aesthetic.

“It's probably one of the worst (cases) that I've seen in my career,” Carroll said. The Longmont resident said he had a general idea of the cemetery's condition before he came, in that he heard it wasn't in very good shape. “It's the graves that are still not totally closed properly, the markers that were not put back after burials. … That's not very common. Typically when a burial is completed the headstone is put into the ground.”

Lawler said he'd focus on at least making the cemetery attractive for people coming out on Memorial Day.

He said he's finally able to fill in the winter burials, but he'd also focus on getting graves leveled, markers replaced and sprinklers fixed.

A cemetery cleanup, which was organized last year, could also be in the cards. But he'd look for a plan from the committee.

“I'll put word out on my end, Mr. Propp could put out the word on his and we'll see what happens,” he said.

Carroll said he gave them tips on how to take care of the cemetery before Memorial Day.

Even with all the volunteers in Sterling, though, Sunset Memorial might never be what it was 30 or 40 years ago simply because of Colorado's water issues. Carroll said it's still worth it to do some mowing and trimming, and at least tackling the issues that “stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Anything that takes that long to destroy,” he said, “it's going to take a long time to get back in shape.”

Still, Carroll thought Lawler seemed willing to help and was “very cooperative.”

As far as ownership, committee members expressed hope that they could find a way to get the property out of Lawler's hands and into Sterling or Logan County's control.

Propp said he spoke with County Attorney Alan Samber on Monday about approaching the county commissioners with the idea of taking over the property. Samber edged away from the idea, suggesting that the city would be the better entity for taking over since they already have Riverside Cemetery.

Propp said he'd speak with the city later this week.

But City Manager Joe Kiolbasa said the prospect of taking over Sunset Memorial was “out of left field,” and hadn't been considered before.

“No one's brought this to my attention,” he said, adding that it's still possible that city council members had been approached. “Personally, I see it as something of a last step effort.”

On one hand he said acquiring the cemetery would make sense, since the city operates Riverside already. But the acquisition could also create competition, and the funding situation is unclear.

For Shaneen and Gregg Lockman, it doesn't matter who takes it over so long as conditions improve.

“My main concern is to have it look like a place where you could bring your loved ones and have them buried,” Gregg said. “I don't think you could in good conscience put someone out here right now.”

Contact Journal-Advocate staff writer David Martinez at 970-526-9283 or dmartinez@journal-advocate.com.

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